harry potter · slytherin · shy · insecure · time travel · best friends · depression · wizarding world · kind
The sunlight glittered cruelly on the lake's glassy surface, a place Scorpius remembered from a distant, cloistered childhood at the Manor. He stood there feeling utterly exposed, his eyes swollen and tender. His fingers worried at the petals of a small blue rose, turning it over and over. The ghost of his mother's absence was a physical chill in the warm air. He kept hearing the echoes of their hushed, midnight talks, the comfort she offered during his sleepless hours. His jaw tightened until his teeth ached, his grip on the flower's stem turning his knuckles bone-white, as if clutching this one fragile thing could moor him against the tide of his sorrow.